Tallinn University of Technology, the only technological university in Estonia, is the flagship of Estonian engineering and technology education. Here the synergy between different fields (technological, natural, exact, social and health sciences) is created and new ideas are born.

1. Organizer The organizer of ICT thesis contest is TalTech School of Information Technologies in collaboration with Taltech Development Fund and ICT field entrepreneurs. The competition is supported by Information Technology Foundation for Education’s Study IT in Estonia programme.

2. Requirements for participants and thesis All students of TalTech School of Information Technologies who have defended their Applied Higher Education, Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis in the spring semester of the 2018/2019 academic year, can take part of the contest.

The final paper presented to the contest must meet the following requirements:

must be written in English or Estonian;

must be permitted for public defense (the defense of the final paper is not closed);

must meet TalTech School of Information Technologies requirements for theses.

Thesis defense committees will review defended theses and give their recommendations on which theses should participate in the contest. The Applied Higher Education and Bachelor’s level committee has the right to recommend up to 5 theses, the Master’s level committee up to 3 theses.

The student will be informed about the proposal of the thesis defense committee to participate in the contest. The students confirms his/her participation in the competition by submitting an application and the thesis.

II stage, pre-stage:

the committee will look through submitted applications and theses. If the committee finds that the subject of the thesis does not fit into the chosen category, the committee has the right to relocate the thesis in the appropriate category;

the committee will choose up to 16 Applied Higher Education and Bachelor’s theses, and up to 18 Master’s theses based on presented applications and final papers, which will go through to the final stage (in total up to 34 theses);

if the student has qualified (or not qualified) to the next stage, he or she will be informed via e-mail no later than June 17th 2019.

III stage, final stage:

will be held on 18th of June;

the competition will take into account good practice of academic defense;

each contestant will present a defense speech that will give an overview of the following aspects: the purpose of the thesis, the reasoning behind its choice (actuality), used methodology, main conclusions and propositions, summary. The presentation must clearly show the student’s own contribution to the work done;

Applied Higher Education and BSc thesis defense speech should be presented in Estonian or English and last max 7 min;

MSc thesis defense speech must be presented in English and last max 10 min;

after the speech, a 5-10-minute question and answer round will follow from the committee and the audience.

5.Evaluating committees The pre-stage committee is composed of representatives of School of IT programmes. In the final stage, the committee consists of at least 5 members and in addition to university representatives, specialty experts from companies may also be included. During the final stage, each category is evaluated by a different committee. Committee decisions are taken on the basis of a discussion. All decisions accepted by the committee cannot be appealed in neither of the stages.

6. Evaluation All final papers presented to the competition will be evaluated on the following key points: establishment and comprehensibility of the assignment(s), technical realization of the solutions presented, their accuracy, originality and novelty. Presentation skills are also evaluated.

7. Acknowledgement of the best theses A winner for each category will be chosen from the presented theses in the final stage. Exception is the BSc/Applied Higher Education level software category, where the committee has the right to choose up to two best theses. In addition, the evaluating committee has a right to give out a special prize in each category. The committee also has a right to not give out the special prize with a valid justifications.

Each category winner is awarded with a scholarship of 500€. The special prize is 200€ for BSc (includes applied higher education theses) and 300€ for MSc. ICT thesis competition scholarship fund is 4300€.

The scholarship fund has been co-financed by: Study IT in Estonia Programme.

In addition to the overall scholarship fund, there are additional company-named scholarships:

Cybernetica scholarship:

the amount of the scholarship is 500€;

the purpose of the grant is to highlight theses that deal with hardware topics;

the scholarship is awarded as an undivided amount to one student;

the grant is given to an outstanding thesis of MSc hardware and systems category.

Swedbank scholarship:

the amount of the scholarship is 500€;

the purpose of the grant is to highlight master's theses that deal with such topics as software, Data Security and Business Intelligence;

the scholarship is awarded as an undivided amount to student, who has writen an outstanding master's thesis in MSc software category.

Scoro scholarship:

the amount of the scholarship is 300€;

the purpose of the grant is to highlight master's theses that deal with such topics as software, productivity and Artificial Intelligence (AI);

the scholarship is awarded as an undivided amount to student, who has written an outstanding master's thesis.

Eesti Energia scholarship (Bachelor's studies):

the amount of the scholarship is 200€;

the purpose of the grant is to highlight bachelor's theses that deal with software related topics;

the scholarship is awarded as an undivided amount to student, who has written an outstanding bachelor's thesis.

Eesti Energia scholarship (Master's studies):

the amount of the scholarship is 300€;

the purpose of the grant is to highlight master's theses that deal with software related topics;

the scholarship is awarded as an undivided amount to student, who has written an outstanding master's thesis.

In case of the additional scholarships from entrepreneurs, the decision is made by the funder of the scholarship or by their authorized representative. The company has a right to not give out the scholarship with a valid justification.

Documents (application and thesis) should be submitted via TalTech Development Fund’s web form (application can be submitted starting from May 21st).

The documents must be in pdf format and named as follows: “first name_last name_thesis/presentation”.

* An application is deemed to be accepted if the thesis has received a recommendation to participate in the competition from the defense committee (see the terms of participation, clause 4); a personal deadline for submitting an application is notified by email.

9.Competition results Competition results will be announced on 18th of June by the end of the day and also will be published on the competition’s website.